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Feature – Tigray: A Potential Humanitarian Crisis

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by Philip Mayne

Militia from the Amhara border region with Tigray rides out to face the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Ethiopia, 9 November 2020 (Image credit: Reuters/Tiksa Negeri)

In 2018 the newly appointed Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed formally brought an end to the Ethiopia-Eritrean War. The armed conflict, fought between 1998 and 2000 following the invasion of Badme by Eritrean forces, killed around 80,000 people and resulted in nearly two decades of tension between the two countries. It was in 2019 that PM Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing peace to Ethiopia. Less than a year later, in October 2020, Ethiopia faces a civil war between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Abiy’s government. Following a reported attack from Tigray regional forces, Abiy ordered a military offensive in the Tigray region on 4 November 2020. The conflict is quickly becoming a major security concern for the country and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa. As the violence increases, there are increasing signs of a potential humanitarian crisis and instability in the region. Hundreds have already been killed, both sides are claiming war crimes, and thousands of refugees are fleeing the country.

The source of the conflict

The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics between 1991 and 2019 as part of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The EPRDF was made up of four parties each one representing each ethnic group in the country. Although all four parties were intended to have equal representation, the EPRDF was dominated by the TPLF, resulting in ethnic-based inequality and tensions. Following protests for reform, in 2019 Prime Minister Abiy merged former member parties of the EPRDF, and other ethnic parties that had been overlooked by the EPRDF, into the Prosperity Party (PP) in an attempt to have fairer representation in central government. However, the TPLF opposed the merger because they would lose their disproportionate influence, as Tigrayans only constitute six per cent of the population. The TPLF made a statement, claiming that the merging of the parties would be akin to bringing together “fire and hay”, and called for the public to oppose the reforms. Rising opposition to the government led to an increase in tensions between the TPLF and Abiy Ahmed.

In August 2020, landmark elections were meant to be held in Ethiopia; this was to be the Prosperity Party’s first electoral campaign. However, in March 2020 it was declared that all national and regional elections were to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak. Opposition groups questioned the decision, claiming that the prime minister was deliberately refusing to hold the elections. Tigray took the unilateral decision to hold regional elections in defiance of the governments’ demands on 8 September 2020. The Prime minister declared the election as illegal and compared them to the construction of shanties by ‘illegal dwellers.’ In October, the federal government began to withhold funds for social welfare programs in retaliation to the ‘illegal’ elections in Tigray.

(Image credit: VOA)

By November tensions between the government and the Tigray region had reached boiling point, and on 4 November Abiy ordered the military to enter the Tigray region, reportedly in response to an attack on government forces by the TPLF. Abiy warned Tigray’s leaders that there is no place for ‘criminal elements’ in Ethiopia, adding that they would ‘extract these criminal elements [from Tigray and] relaunch our country on a path to sustainable prosperity for all.’ The TPLF, however, see the use of troops as punishment for the September vote, and an act of aggression. Debretsion Gebremichael, President of the Tigray region, said: ‘what has been initiated against us is clearly a war, an invasion … this is a war we’re conducting to preserve our existence.’

The government declared a six-month state of emergency across the Tigray region on 5 November. The declaration grants the government the power to suspend political and democratic rights. It also allows for the government to impose curfews, searches without warrants, communications and transportation restrictions and the detention of any person or suspect that is taking part in illegal activities. Under these regulations, Prime Minister Abiy had cut all communication and transport links to the Tigray region.

A humanitarian disaster?

At the time of writing, Ethiopia appears to be on the brink of a potentially long and bloody civil war. The fighting is already believed to have claimed the lives of hundreds of people and fighting has spread across the region. Even with the government cutting off all media and communication with the Tigray region, there have already been reports of atrocities across the region. Amnesty International reported that a massacre occurred in Tigray on 9 November possibly killing hundreds. Amnesty International has been unable to establish who is responsible for the hacking to death of civilians on 9 November. However, witnesses claim that both have been killing civilians. If the situation worsens, there are concerns that this will result in a major humanitarian crisis. The UN has warned that “if the Tigray national (and) regional forces and Ethiopian Government forces continue down the path they are on, there is a risk this situation will spiral totally out of control”.

Not only are civilians at risk of being killed by violence, but because government forces have closed the roads to Tigray, aid agencies are struggling to reach the most vulnerable; prior to the conflict there were already 96,000 Eritrean refugees living in Tigray and 100,000 internally displaced people. Currently, the UN provides food for 600,000 people in Tigray and there have already been shortages of basic commodities such as flour. There have also been cuts to essential services such as electricity and water. If the conflict continues, the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia will continue to worsen.

In less than two weeks, the fighting in Tigray has resulted in at least 21,000 refugees fleeing the violence into Sudan. One border point, which can typically accommodate 300 refugees, is currently overwhelmed with 6,000 people. If the conflict continues, it is expected that potentially hundreds of thousands of people may flee the violence.

Prospects for de-escalation/improvement

At present, the future for Ethiopia looks bleak. The country is on the cusp of a major humanitarian crisis, akin to the suffering endured during Ethiopia’s civil war of the 1980s. The flow of refugees is putting pressure on to neighbouring countries, and the conflict seems to be worsening. On 13 November reports of troops firing into the Amhara region, an area that backs the Abiy government raises fears that the conflict could spread across more regions of the country. Today, some reports also claim that Tigrayan forces have fired into Eritrea, with the TPLF forces suggesting that Eritrean forces are supporting the Ethiopian government. Relations between the TPLF leaders and Isaias Afwerki, the ruler of Eritrea, have been poor for decades. Eritrean conscription, a call-up of retired Eritrean senior officers, and troop movements towards to border have recently worsened tensions between the TPLF and its northern neighbour. If the violence in Ethiopia cannot be abated, then the conflict has the potential to spill further into Eritrea, and potentially into powers across the Horn of Africa.

However, there are efforts that can help alleviate the humanitarian crisis. One of the main issues concerns the ability of aid to reach the most vulnerable. Every day without aid the thousands of vulnerable people in the region become more vulnerable as access to necessities is becoming increasingly harder. The UN is negotiating with both sides for humanitarian corridors to be opened, but as of yet, they are still unable to enter the region. The government must open the Tigray region to aid agencies to begin alleviating the suffering of the Ethiopian people. One of the major concerns for the UN is food insecurity in the region. Currently, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council says that it has enough resources to meet the needs of 300,000 people until January 2021, half of those that needed it before the conflict, and the Joint Emergency Operation Plan NGO says that it needs to restock in December 2020 to ensure it can continue to assist the population. Without a resupply of food, there are fears that hundreds of thousands of people will be left without access to food. The UN reports show a similar situation for medicine and emergency supplies.

The most pressing priority is bringing about a cessation of hostilities to stop the violence before the conflict escalates into a protracted civil war that could further destabilise the region. Analysts have argued that it is not too late to stop the war from spiralling out of control. Pressure must be applied to get both parties to agree to a ceasefire. The United Nations Secretary-General has called for “all stakeholders to take urgent steps to calm tensions in the country and to resolve challenges through an inclusive and peaceful dialogue”. But if more pressure is applied from parties within Ethiopia, its neighbours in the Horn of Africa, the African Union and abroad, then perhaps the parties may be brought to the negotiating table and to agree on a potential ceasefire. By stopping the fighting, opening the Tigray region, a humanitarian disaster could be averted.

The best-case scenario for Ethiopia would be for both the TPLF and the Abiy Government to agree to a ceasefire, both communication and transport links would be opened in Tigray allowing for aid to reach those who need it. The worst-case would be the escalation of violence, resulting in a catastrophic humanitarian disaster, the deaths of thousands of Ethiopians and potentially destabilise the region. The current circumstances indicate the worst-case scenario is more likely to become the reality, as Prime Minister Abiy said on 17 November that the chance for a ceasefire has expired, and the TPLF have reiterated that they will not back down. Therefore, there must be more international pressure on both parties to change their position and come to the negotiating table.

Philip Mayne is a final year PhD candidate at the University of Hull. He has a special interest in strategy, counterinsurgency, military ethics, military history, international security and relations. His thesis examines the relationship between military ethics and military effectiveness. Specifically, his work focuses on adherence to the Just War Tradition, and success in counterinsurgencies; through analysing the case studies of the Malayan Emergency, the Kenyan Emergency, the Algerian War and the Vietnam War. Philip has contributed to the Huffington Post and is an active member of the Hull University War Studies Research Group. Find him on Twitter @phil_mayne.

The Forgotten Casualties: The Indirect Gendered Consequences of Explosive Violence on Civilian Populations

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by Miles Cameron Hunter

9 July 2019

One of thousands of Syria’s widows; Hanaa’s husband went missing before their son was even born. She now struggles to support him on her own. (Image credit: 2014 UNRWA Photo by Taghrid Mohammad)

Explosive violence is a feature of most contemporary armed conflicts. It comes in many forms: from mortars and airstrikes, to landmines and suicide bombings. Tragically, it is civilians who face the brunt. There is little sign of this trend abating: the casualty monitor run by Action on Armed Violence observed a 165% increase in civilian deaths as a result of explosive violence between 2011 and 2017.

The impact of explosive violence is far-reaching, triggering numerous indirect consequences beyond an initial blast; this affects everything from the provision of effective healthcare, to education and sanitation. However, this piece focuses on a less-discussed impact of explosive violence: the series of indirect gender-related consequences. Patriarchal societal norms and values in many war-torn regions often result in women being immensely disadvantaged. Meanwhile, the traditional impression that men are the chief actors in war is still overstated, frequently leading to the impact on women going unseen. These views persist even as explosive violence in modern war harms a growing number of women and children. Women regularly find themselves widowed in societies that repress their independence, raising families alone in poverty while often enduring limited access to health and after care services. Greater awareness regarding these gender-based issues is overdue.

For men, the consequences are often more self-evident. As a result, they tend to overshadow the subtler, but no less important, impact on women. The raw statistics suggest that men and boys are more likely to be harmed in an explosive incident than women, especially when looking at landmines or explosive remnants of war (ERWs). According to data from 2015, 86% of explosive incidents where the gender was known involved men. A main reason for this is societal norms and traditional gender roles that are often present in affected areas.

In many of the worst hit regions, such as Syria and Zimbabwe, it is commonplace for men to be the chief breadwinners for the family, while afflicted regions also tend to be more economically disadvantaged. As a result, occupations such as farming and scrap salvaging are notably at risk, with labourers (usually men) forced to work dangerous land to provide for their families.

But there are more indirect gendered-consequences. In societies where it is the norm for a man to provide, a maimed father has a knock-on effect on the family. Often, it is children, generally boys, who are pulled out of school to work instead, facing the same dangers from explosive ordnance. Women also suffer the cost.

Despite being more likely to suffer direct consequences of blasts, men are also in a more advantageous position to cope by receiving treatment and/or finding alternate employment. This is largely due to gender-based bias in many affected societies. Dr Sherry Wren, in association with Doctors Without Borders, has expressed concerns that medical treatment in conflict zones, such as those in Sub-Sharan Africa and the Middle East, is far less accessible to women. Data suggests that sixty-nine percent of surgeries between 2008 and 2014 were on men, leading to fears that women are under-represented in hospitals due to their second-class societal status. It is true that for direct violent trauma, such as gunshot wounds and explosive injuries, seventy percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is not surprising. However, the alarming figure is that even for indirect trauma, such as illness and disease, seventy-three percent of surgeries were performed on men. This is a stark inequality.

The key finding of this report is that women endure many long-term, and often overlooked, indirect consequences of explosive violence. In general, there is already an issue with long-term trauma in post-war states being neglected. However, for women this is exacerbated due to a second-class status in the patriarchal societies that make up the majority of modern conflict zones. Injured women are less likely to have access to aftercare services and generally face more stigma and marginalisation than men if disfigured; according to  UN research into gender-based perceptions of war survivors. There are also health complications unique to women. For instance, a blast can damage the female placenta, leading to direct or indirect complications in childbirth in future: indeed, this is one of the biggest killers of young women according to the WHO.

Women in Non-Western patriarchal societies also suffer from many indirect socio-economic consequences of explosive violence. Those widowed, or who have a husband incapacitated, face a plethora of struggles. They find themselves in a position where they must be chief breadwinner in cultures that frequently militate against women working, while also retaining the responsibility of raising children.

In Syria and Lebanon, fifty percent of families with a female head face food insecurity and are twice as likely to live in deprived informal settlements. Many women struggle to find work due to gender-based stigma. As a result, they risk being dragged into poverty and/or forced into exploitative means of income such as sex work or seeking early marriage for young girls. All of this can cause intense psychological scarring, which although not as immediately evident as physical injury, can be equally debilitating.

Even when women struggling in the aftermath of explosive violence do find conventional work there are harsh inequalities. In Lebanon, it is reported that women often work longer hours than men for just seventy-seven percent of what their male counterparts earn, while also having demanding maternal duties.

There are many more hardships facing women than those documented in this report. But its findings are demonstrative of clear gender-based issues persisting in civilian populations affected by explosive violence. The notion that men are the primary actors in war still prevails despite the ever-greater toll on women and children. Consequently, the plight of thousands of women affected by explosive incidence often goes unnoticed.  As awareness for their predicament grows, traditional assumptions need to evolve along with the changing nature of war.

Miles Hunter graduated from King’s College London with a BA in War Studies and an MA in Terrorism, Security and Society. He is currently a researcher with the charitable NGO Action on Armed Violence.

Will India and Pakistan Go To War?

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By Saawani Raje

28 February 2019 

 

“Will India and Pakistan ever go to war?” This question has gained new significance since Pakistan shot down two Indian fighter jets early on the morning of 27th February and captured the pilot of one. For Pakistan, this escalation makes sense if you consider the escalation pyramid explained in the preceding piece. It could be in Pakistan’s strategic interests to frame Indian strikes on terrorist camps as a violation on Pakistani territory. This deflects from the main issue at hand — the existence of terrorist training camps in Pakistani territory (a claim that Pakistan has always vociferously denied) — and avoids the risk of international isolation.  This piece unpacks the question of the possibility of war by analysing the trend of Indian and Pakistani crises through the lenses of nuclear deterrence, international intervention, and crisis management. It argues that while there might be escalation in confrontational rhetoric even up to the level of a limited conflict, an all-out war on a scale seen previously in 1965 or 1971 is highly unlikely for a number of reasons.

Historically, it has been argued that India practices strategic restraint. However, a re-reading of past crises, especially wars against Pakistan in 1948, 1965 or 1971, actually shows Indian political and military leaders’ willingness to escalate.[1] Any restraint in these crises was influenced by issues like limited capabilities, risks associated with escalation, and the need to maintain national and international legitimacy.[2] Under Narendra Modi’s government, the ‘surgical strikes’ of 2016 reiterate the political and military leadership’s willingness to use force against Pakistan as an answer to its provocation. For India, this escalation is a risk the Modi government can afford to take. The possibility of war refocuses any discontent that the Indian public has with the government. It serves to unite Indian citizens behind the government against a common enemy: Pakistan. The social and news media rhetoric in India evidences this with repeated calls for war with Pakistan since the 14 February attack.[3] This rhetoric is especially significant given that this is an election year, and the BJP campaign has engaged quite strongly with the idea of nationalism. It is also India’s chance to call Pakistan’s bluff about its nuclear red lines. A show of strength in this regard might be a strong signal to the Pakistani establishment that India does not tolerate provocation and refuses to be held hostage to its nuclear doctrine. However, the evidence is greater to support the argument that India and Pakistan will in fact not go to war, especially on this occasion.

Firstly, both India and Pakistan have made it clear that they do not want war. When addressing the Pakistani retaliatory strikes on 27 February, Pakistani Major General Asif Ghafoor emphasised that no Indian military targets had been hit because Pakistan does not ‘want to go on the path of war.’ The Indian Minister for External Affairs, Sushma Swaraj echoed this sentiment when she said, ‘India doesn’t wish to see further escalation.’ Escalation to war is a risk neither side is willing to take. The existence of nuclear weapons and the economic costs of war are two factors that greatly influence this reluctance. Secondly, it is in the interests of the international community to step in with increased concern about the stability of the region in an attempt to stop escalation, as has been seen before.

Nuclear weapons in South Asia

Between 1974 and 1998, both India and Pakistan went through a period of ‘nuclear opacity.’ This was a situation in which neither state’s leaders had acknowledged the existence of their state’s nuclear program, but there was enough evidence about the program’s existence to influence the other nation’s perceptions and actions.[4] During this time, awareness about the other’s nuclear arsenal raised insecurities; however, neither state wanted to escalate tensions because they were unsure about the other’s nuclear posture. Such was the case in the 1986 Brasstacks Military exercise and a 1990 crisis between the two states that CIA Deputy Director Richard Kerr described as ‘the most dangerous nuclear situation’ he had faced. In both cases, the states reached the brink of crisis and withdrew, in part due to concern and ambiguity about each other’s nuclear posture.[5]

Following tests in 1998, both states declared themselves nuclear weapon-capable states. The Pakistani nuclear doctrine was India-specific and emphasised that given Indian conventional capability, Pakistan reserved the right to use nuclear weapons first in extremis.[6] This provided Pakistan with compelling incentive to provoke India, while remaining secure in the knowledge that its nuclear policy severely limited Indian retaliatory options. As exemplified in the 1999 Kargil conflict when, despite rhetoric from both sides showing willingness to explore nuclear avenues of escalation, India showed restraint in not crossing the Line of Control, avoiding crossing Pakistan’s nuclear red line.

Ironically, the years of nuclear opacity have been relatively more stable than the years following the declaration of India and Pakistan as nuclear powers. In addition, cases like Kargil, the 2001-02 military standoff between India and Pakistan, or the 2008 Mumbai attack show an emboldened and provocative Pakistan that uses its first strike nuclear doctrine as a shield against a restrained India that is limited by its no-first use doctrine. Pakistan’s testing of tactical nuclear weapons further complicates issues, as this operationalises nuclear weapons. Pakistan thus continues to attack India in low-level unconventional methods because it is safe in the knowledge that India’s ability to retaliate is limited. It thus falls upon India to call Pakistan’s bluff. The excuse of targeting terrorist havens in Pakistani territory, as the much-publicised surgical strikes showed, provide an efficient instrument for India to do just that. Thus, escalation of conventional conflict is a much bigger risk in South Asia than is purported.

International involvement in de-escalation:

The question then is, despite the increased instability, why does the conflict between the two states not lead to war? The answer lies in the examination of past wars between India and Pakistan and the role of the international community in bringing them to a close. India-Pakistan crises in 1965, 1999 and the 2001-02 standoff all saw the international community scramble to bring about de-escalation.[7] In all the crises, India adopted a strong coercive posture, possibly with the knowledge that in event of increased escalation, the international community will step in to cease hostilities as it did in each of those conflicts.        

In sum, nuclear weapons increase stability in the region in general. They do increase the likelihood of low-level conflict, but they decrease the likelihood of all-out war between the two states. Secondly, escalation of conflict between India and Pakistan has always been looked at with growing concern by the international community, which has more often than not played a pivotal role in the cessation of hostilities, as the cases of 1948, 1965 and Kargil show. These factors decrease the likelihood of India and Pakistan going to war with each other despite the possibility that they will engage in an escalation of rhetoric or even low-level hostilities. While the rhetoric in India today is inherently advocating strong retributive action against Pakistan, the above factors show that despite an escalation of rhetoric, diplomatic efforts or even limited military action, India and Pakistan will not actually end up in an all-out war with each other. The social media #saynotowar hashtag that is currently seen across a lot of Indian and Pakistani social media might be more on point than ever.

Saawani Raje is a PhD candidate at the King’s India Institute and a recipient of the King’s India Scholarship, as well as a Senior Editor at Strife. Her PhD research is primarily a historical examination into civil-military decision-making during crises in independent India. You can follow her on Twitter @saawaniraje.

Notes:

[1] Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Indian “Strategic Restraint” Revisited: The Case of the 1965 India-Pakistan War’, India Review 17, no. 1 (1 January 2018): 55–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2018.1415277; Srinath Raghavan, 1971 A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2013).

[2] Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Indian “Strategic Restraint” Revisited: The Case of the 1965 India-Pakistan War’, India Review 17, no. 1 (1 January 2018): 55–75, https://doi.org/10.1080/14736489.2018.1415277.

[3] Fatima Bhutto, ‘Opinion | Hashtags for War Between India and Pakistan’, The New York Times, 27 February 2019, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/opinion/india-pakistan-crisis.html.

[4] Scott D. Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia, Reprint edition (Stanford, Calif: Stanford Security Studies, 2009).

[5] Devin T. Hagerty, ‘Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia: The 1990 Indo-Pakistani Crisis’, International Security 20, no. 3 (1995): 79–114, https://doi.org/10.2307/2539140.

[6] ‘Krepon et Al. – 2013 – Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in Sou.Pdf’, accessed 27 February 2019, https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-attachments/Deterrence_Stability_Dec_2013_web_1.pdf.

[7] Farooq Naseem Bajwa, From Kutch to Tashkent: The Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 (London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd, 2013); Malik V. P. General, Kargil : From Surprise To Victory (New Delhi: Harpercollins, 2010); ‘To the Brink: 2001-02 India-Pakistan Standoff’, accessed 27 February 2019, http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/to-the-brink-2001-02-india-pakistan-standoff/; Sumit Ganguly and Michael R. Kraig, ‘The 2001–2002 Indo-Pakistani Crisis: Exposing the Limits of Coercive Diplomacy’, Security Studies 14, no. 2 (April 2005): 290–324.

Image source: https://www.dailypioneer.com/uploads/2016/story/images/big/9431_1.gif

Art, conflict, and the everyday – Traces of War launch event

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By: Laurie Benson

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Ribbons I, 2015. 6 bars made of various Siachen soldier’s clothing, sponge and wood. Photo credit: Baptist Coelho, Project 88, Mumbai; LAMO, Leh.

Wednesday 13th April marked the launch of the Leverhulme Artist-in-Residence hosted by the Arts and Conflict Hub and Research Centre in International Relations, Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The residency features the artist Baptist Coelho who introduced his artistic practice at the event. An exhibition entitled ‘Traces of War’ will be held in November 2016 at the Inigo Rooms. Co-curator Cécile Bourne-Farrell stressed that the exhibition is an exploratory process to ‘recalibrate our vision’, not by transcending, but engaging with the everyday experiences of war and its locations. This article explores certain themes prompted by the upcoming exhibition and discussions, namely in terms of commemoration, the everyday, and the role of artists and art in conflict.

 

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Left to Right: Baptist Coelho, Vivienne Jabri, Cécile Bourne-Farrell. (Photo Credit: Xenia Zubova)
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Council Room, King’s College London, Strand Campus. (Photo Credit: Laurie Benson)

Baptist’s presentation took the audience on a journey from locations in India and Pakistan, to the living rooms of ex-British soldiers, and memorial sites in Brighton. Since 2006 he has engaged with the India/Pakistan conflict though a project entitled Siachen Glacier, exploring the extreme conditions experienced by soldiers on the border-located glacier battlefield. Notable pieces have included Ribbons I (2015) and “I long to see some colour…” (2009) an installation piece in which empty photo frames in a soldier’s rucksack suggest that what is not visible can still be present. From tales recounted to the artist embedded with the soldiers, the claustrophobic white landscapes of the glacier framed their reality day in, day out. So often saturated by the CNN-bannered news imagery or fluorescent aerial drone aesthetics, Baptist’s work and its realisation in the gallery space also stresses the banal palettes of conflict.

 

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“I long to see some colour…”, 2009. Installation with soldier’s nylon rucksack and 70 photo frames. Photo credit: Baptist Coelho; Project 88, Mumbai; Visual Arts Gallery, Delhi. Collection: The Lekha and Anupam Poddar Collection

Working in mixed-media, from installation and photography to video, his practice draws on different textures, archival maps, booklets, interviews, and recently, gauge bandages. His aesthetic engagement prompts the viewer to consider the co-presence of different narratives; of what gets counted or not. Conflict involves human lives, bodily disposition, struggle, and the day-to-day. Focusing on objects juxtaposed in a cold display cabinet, for example, alludes to the proximity and distance of conflict and its display. How and through what frames is conflict viewed? What does an audience expect to see? What are the ethical and political implications of visibility and what is naturalised?
The role of the artist in conflict and politics has long been theorised, contested, and marketed. Art has been drawn upon to illustrate the horrors of war by academics, critics, and philosophers alike. Picasso’s Guernica is one of the most commonly cited examples. But perhaps what is also at stake is the practice, the doing. Artistic methods of researching and visualising intervene as much as they reveal; ways of working are potentially disruptive. They are also relational. Art is curated, exhibited, funded, viewed, and reviewed in contexts with audiences bringing their own frames of reference, expectations, and experiences in these processes of meaning-making. As Theodor Adorno reminds us, art works are both aesthetic and ‘social fact’.

Memories and traces of the past surface in the present, from war memorials, literature, film, and art, to personal stories passed through generations, and community claims left unrecognised in (re)articulations of the nation. How and what gets commemorated- its performance and symbolic cache- are political, intersecting the private and public. Public sites, for example museums and their collections, are not neutral but institutional spaces with bordering practices that intersect personal histories and official narrative. Baptist stresses engaging with the archive as a central part of his artistic research. The archive is active, not a relic of the past, but rather history in the present. An upcoming art project will look at the commemoration in a Brighton community for an Indian soldier fighting under the British in World War One. The recent controversies over the statue of Cecil Rhodes exemplifies the ongoing question of how a nation deals with its colonial past and what, and whom, are considered to belong. Judith Butler speaks of the ‘derealisation of loss’, of the politics and hierarchy of human experience, but Baptist’s work also suggests the possibility of thinking differently through and with art and its politics.

 

 

The exhibition supported by King’s Cultural Programming entitled ‘Traces of War’ will be held in the Indigo Rooms, from 26th October to December 2016.It is being curated by Professor Vivienne Jabri, Department of War Studies, and Cécile Bourne-Farrell. The exhibition will feature work by prominent artists, Jananne Al-Ani and Shaun Gladwell as well as pieces by Baptist as-yet exhibited in the UK. The residency, featuring the artist Baptist Coelho, is being supported by the Leverhulme Trust and the Delfina Foundation.
Laurie Benson is a PhD Candidate in the Department of War Studies

 

For more information about the artist please check:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/people/baptist/index.aspx 

 

Additional Information & Media:

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/news/newsrecords/Baptist-Coelho-launch-marks-Traces-of-War-exhibition.aspx

A Whiff of Brass: The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson

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By Bradley Lineker:

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson, Hodder and Stoughton., 2014. Pages: 416. £25.00 (hardback). ISBN 9781444783025

When young Tories are about to make their maiden speeches in the House of Commons, they can often be found – or so Johnson tells us – in the Member’s Lobby underneath the imposing statue of Churchill, as if trying to channel the great man’s spirit. [1] Indeed, Churchill’s left foot has been rubbed to a brassy-shine with all the attempted thaumaturgy; and while there is more than a whiff of left-footed-brassiness about the book, it is also quite a bit more than this.

Much like Boris himself, the book is an entertaining – if at times buffoonish – introduction to Churchill’s character and achievements that, alongside some very obvious flaws, achieves Johnson’s stated aim: of providing an insight into the life and times of the Greatest Briton to a generation now twice-removed from when he lived.

The structure of the book, similar to Johnson’s other writings, reflects this aim; particularly as the small news-article-style chapters – each thematically dealing with specific parts of Churchill’s character and achievements – emphasise accessibility. While this compliments the breezy conversational prose, there are moments where it can appear lazy – his Jeremy Kyle treatment of Churchill’s fiascos[2] for instance – or grate on the reader – see, in particular, his clunky use of ending paragraphs to introduce new chapters. Furthermore, much like his hero, it seems Johnson has dictated much of the book, and for those expectant of substantive prose, in places it unfortunately shows.

Johnson begins the book by outlining events of 1940, before steadily, and with a rough sort of chronology, moving through Churchill’s life using his character-traits as a sort of guide to base his chapters. Johnson’s chapters arc over Churchill’s courage,[3] risk-taking,[4] use of language,[5] as well as his general character,[6] and personal relationships – to name but a few. This method, while perhaps illustrating how the work cannot really be treated as a work of pure-history (something that Johnson himself admits[7]), is nonetheless effective at offering an accessible kaleidoscope to the man.

The Churchill Factor isn’t a history in the proper sense, nor even is it really a biography, it is more an informal personal appraisal; and it therefore cannot be compared to nor extend the work of Churchill’s other biographers. This is reinforced by Johnson’s constant referral to professional historians, such as Max Hastings’ assessment of the paucity of the British officer class,[8] or Lamb’s account of the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir[9], as well as his cartoonish metaphors – such as comparing Britain’s war reputation to that of Manchester United and its actual record to Tunstall Town F.C.[10] However, Johnson’s playful cavalierness with people and events leads to gross over-simplifications of history that at times mar the text. For instance, “Germany … and German militarism and expansion”[11] are narrowly blamed for the First World War (an argument that has significantly more problems than that for 1939-1945), which, when situated alongside blithe comments about the effects of the reforms of the 1920s (“[Churchill] helped save Britain from fascism not once, but twice”[12]), among many other examples, betrays a dangerously simplistic retelling of history. Moreover, scattered here and there, there is a faint knee-slapping jingoism, demonstrated by Johnson’s account of British national identity[13] and Churchill’s “foreign names … [are] made for Englishmen, not Englishmen for foreign names” telegram[14], which together seem to embellish and glorify imperial Britishness, while dimming its excesses.

Although, one is left to wonder how much of the book is actually about Winston Churchill, as, too often, it is stymied by Johnson’s attempts to work out the ambiguity in his own relationship with the former Prime Minister. While Johnson, much in the same way that a 12-year old Boris may have done,[15] lavishes praise upon the Greatest Briton[16] – even embarking on a pilgrimage, complete with can of “Stella” and cigar, to Churchill’s First World War billet in southern Belgium[17] – the truth seems more ambiguous: “[while] I love writing and thinking about Winston Churchill, the old boy can sometimes be faintly intimidating. I hasten to say that he is always brilliant fun – but as you try to do justice to his life you are acutely conscious of being chained to a genius, and a genius of unbelievable energy and fecundity.”[18] This is the most overt articulation of Johnson’s own presence in the book, where he continually – consciously or subconsciously – compares and at times attempts to match Churchill while recording his achievements.

Some of Johnson’s more welcome interventions are, in fact, when he gives us analysis on the nature of the politician,[19] journalist[20] or writing under the influence of alcohol. [21] Johnson’s deconstruction of Churchill’s speechmaking (“It’s all about the music of the speech, more than the logic. It’s the sizzle, not the sausage.”[22]), and the schmoozing of FDR and America[23] are unique in that they’re being made by an active politician. However his political point scoring can be tedious in places – such as when he says: “[Churchill] was radical precisely because he was conservative. He knew what all sensible Tories know – that the only way to keep things the same is to make sure you change them…” [24] These comments, offered here and there, are interesting in their own right (again, coming from an active politician) but they seem out of place in this book.

The Churchill Factor remains a light-hearted and accessible companion piece to other biographies, an altogether more detailed and distinguished Horrible History,[25] to both a man and his historical period, which remains stunted by its style, marred by wistful historical distortions, disengaged with other histories, and bogged-down with the vanity of its author. The book certainly has its flaws, but it is inescapably entertaining nonetheless – with the easy, conversational charm only broken at times by stylistic chunkiness and a few oddball absurdities that one has to accept as part of the Johnson package. However, in view of its dictated-style and its purposely patchy application of historical and biographical traditions, and especially in view of the excellent McKellen-narrated piece – which share many similarities to Johnson’s book – the question remains: why wasn’t this a documentary instead of a book?

Bradley Lineker is currently a fully-funded ESRC doctoral candidate in the War Studies Department, King’s College London. He has extensive experience working as a consulting research analyst with the UN and the private sector on contexts like Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Kenya, Somalia and Syria. Follow him @BradleyLineker. 

NOTES

[1] Johnson, B. (2014), The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History (London: Hodder and Stoughton), p. 31

2Ibid., p. 201-224

3 Ibid., p. 56-68 Chapter 5: No Act Too Daring or Too Noble

4 Ibid., p. 201-224 Chapter 15: Playing Roulette with History

5 Ibid., p. 84-101 Chapter 7: He Mobilised the English Language

6 Ibid., p. 134-147 ‘Chapter 10: The Making of John Bull’

7 Ibid., p. 4

8 Ibid., p. 266

9 Ibid., p. 233

10 Ibid., p. 265

11 Ibid., p. 173-4

12 Ibid., p. 162

13 Ibid., p. 136

14 Ibid., p. 199

15 see Ibid., p. 189 for a particular memorable quote

16 Ibid., p. 1

17 Ibid., p. 174

18 Ibid., p. 350

19 Ibid., p. 206

20 Ibid., p. 70

21 Ibid., p. 70

22 Ibid., p. 90

23 Ibid., p. 241-256

24 Ibid., p. 160

25 I have borrowed this likeness from: Coughlin, C. (2014). “The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson, review: ‘a breathless romp’”. The Telegraph. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/11182335/the-churchill-factor-by-boris-johnson.html.